The Greeneville volleyball team made it look easy with a sweep of Johnson County in the first round of the District 2-2A tournament on Monday at Greeneville. Carried by quick starts and a flurry of kills from the whole squad, the Lady Devils won 25-8, 25-14, 25-14.
“That was one of the most consistent matches that we’ve played in a while,” Greenville coach Sara Aiken said. “I’m proud of that. We came in with a couple of goals and we focused really good on those. We had good consistency tonight.”
Aiken has been coaching her team to play more aggressively lately and that paid off with 21 total kills.
“We really worked hard on reducing our errors in a row,” she said. “I’ll cheer on an error if it's a good miss. We’ve been working on keeping those error runs to a minimum and I thought that played into us being successful on our attacks.”
The aggression allowed the Lady Devils to jump ahead to a 9-0 lead in the first set, aided by great serves from Trudi Aiken. Aiken had an ace and Kinley McCaslin hammered two kills during the stretch.
“It takes your shoulders down away from your ears a little bit,” Sara said with a laugh. “And good for (Trudi) for coming in confident with the first serves of the match. Maybe in your senior season, you make sure you want to get out of the elimination round. That was big. I loved it.”
Four of Greeneville’s next points came off kills from Destani Bailey, Kyla Jobe and Leah Ford. The Lady Devils kept up the momentum until they held a 20-8 lead. They scored the final five points of the first set with kills from Jobe and McCaslin and a tap from Bailey, 25-8.
In the second set, Johnson County kept pace with Greeneville early but it didn't last. Down 5-4, Jobe served six straight Lady Devils points, including an ace, to give them a 10-5 advantage.
The Lady Longhorns narrowed the gap, 10-9, but Greeneville turned up the aggression once more and scored five straight with two kills from McCaslin and an ace from Emma Shelton, 15-9.
The teams alternated points until Greeneville held a 19-14 lead. Then, similar to the first set, the Lady Devils ended the second with a run of points, 25-14, highlighted by a kill from Jobe and an ace from Brynlee Jones.
Greeneville completed the sweep after taking a 10-5 lead to begin the third set. The Lady Longhorns were able to keep the game within five points for the majority, but still had no answers for Greeneville’s aggressive hitters.
Up 18-13, the Lady Devils had another strong finish, scoring seven points to Johnson County’s one, highlighted by a block from Bailey and a kill from McCaslin, 25-14.
McCaslin led the Lady Devils with eight kills.
“She’s so athletic,” Aiken said of McCaslin. “She’s so fun to watch. She gets to places quickly and I think Kinley had a really fantastic night, just at the net. She played solid, had good ball control and played defense well.”
Jobe added four kills and an ace, Bailey had four kills and two blocks and Leah Ford had four kills.
The Lady Devils face Chuckey-Doak in the next round on Tuesday at Greeneville.
Sara Aiken said that her team will need to focus on playing consistently if they want to stay in and have a chance at making the championship match.
“We need to play through errors and come back and be successful and not let those errors stack up on each other,” she said. ”This district plays the ball up relentlessly. We’re not always going to get a kill on the first attack. We’re going to have to go after it.”
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